There’s officially a power outage in the Hubbard cluster. The streaming apps don’t work but I’m not sure if this also affects the AM and FM dial.
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Power Outage in the Hubbard Cluster
- Thread starter TheM1ghtyBear
- Start date
The Pacific NW got hit with a Bomb Cyclone, as the Weather Channel calls it. I would just call it 'one helluva storm'. Bomb implies an explosion, then coupled with a cyclone? YIKES!
This really affected the East King County area. All Mercer Island is without power. Cougar and WTM on Generator. On Vashon the East side of the island and north end had alot of branches and trees across the road down, but no island wide outage on the Island except a few small areas with Eastern exposure like Bunker Trail and Glen Acres.
North Seattle and farther north has outages. Looking at the PSE outage map it does look like Factoria, where Hubbard is located is still out and that could affect some service to their building like internet. Listened to their stations quickly as I inspected sites on Vashon and they were on the air. Priority would be keeping the STL to the transmitter up.
I know there is a Chain saw party clearing access to West tiger Via the back way since HWY 18 has lots of trees down and is closed. Probably a few folks still sawing away at Cougar.
North Seattle and farther north has outages. Looking at the PSE outage map it does look like Factoria, where Hubbard is located is still out and that could affect some service to their building like internet. Listened to their stations quickly as I inspected sites on Vashon and they were on the air. Priority would be keeping the STL to the transmitter up.
I know there is a Chain saw party clearing access to West tiger Via the back way since HWY 18 has lots of trees down and is closed. Probably a few folks still sawing away at Cougar.
So, there's this:
What is bombogenesis?
Bombogenesis, a term used by meteorologists, occurs when a midlatitude cyclone rapidly intensifies, or strengthens, over a 24 hour period. This intensification is represented by a drop in millibars, a measurement of pressure used in meteorology.
oceanservice.noaa.gov
"Bombogenesis, a term used by meteorologists, occurs when a midlatitude (the latitudes between the tropics and polar regions) cyclone rapidly intensifies, or strengthens, over a 24 hour period."
A hurricane-force wind event, no matter what it's called, is still a b*tch to deal with the aftermath.
Thanks @xmtrland for the update. I heard from family that's up there; all is well. I see a generator of some sort being an investment they'll need to consider for their home in the future.
I am an insurance broker in the Seattle market. It was our busiest day for claims/client care in the history of our org. This was a Big One. Not THE Big One, but still. Many millions in damage.
This was a very interesting event in just who was affected. Usually Vashon Island is in the dark and Mercer Island gets by with minimal damage. This time the deck is stacked differently the East side, Bellevue to Issaquah took the hit. Lots of expensive properties in that area. Was just talking to a friend on living on Orcas Island and he didn't have any wind to speak of and no damage or power outage.
Looks like all the Hubbard sites, studios to AM and FM transmitters are still on Generator. Hopefully they got a good battery powered light so they can use the bathroom.
That brings up an issue especially for Mercer Island or any location that depends on lift pumps to move the flow of Sewage. If they have a generator for backup power, hopefully they are keeping them topped off. If the pumps have no backup power how long before the lines back up. Had that issue when KUBE lost studio power during the inauguration day wind storm and they lost studio power for 4 or 5 days. They had a Honda generator for the studio to keep that going. But the holding tank for the Sewage didn't have power for the lift pump so the tank filled and they shut off the water to the building so the tank would not over flow. They brought in a generator to pump the tank down and once it was empty they turned the water back on. All those Sloan valves started to just run because they rely on pressure to time how they flush and shut off. All the valves were just flowing and filled that tank up in no time. They had unfortunately shut off the generator and were getting ready to move it when the tank started to overflow and they had to quickly re connect the pump and pump it down again and then jiggle all the Sloan valve handles to get them to work properly. I wonder if there are similar situations goin on now in the Bellevue/Factoria/Mercer island area. It may take a day for the issue to build up or bubble up.
Looks like all the Hubbard sites, studios to AM and FM transmitters are still on Generator. Hopefully they got a good battery powered light so they can use the bathroom.
That brings up an issue especially for Mercer Island or any location that depends on lift pumps to move the flow of Sewage. If they have a generator for backup power, hopefully they are keeping them topped off. If the pumps have no backup power how long before the lines back up. Had that issue when KUBE lost studio power during the inauguration day wind storm and they lost studio power for 4 or 5 days. They had a Honda generator for the studio to keep that going. But the holding tank for the Sewage didn't have power for the lift pump so the tank filled and they shut off the water to the building so the tank would not over flow. They brought in a generator to pump the tank down and once it was empty they turned the water back on. All those Sloan valves started to just run because they rely on pressure to time how they flush and shut off. All the valves were just flowing and filled that tank up in no time. They had unfortunately shut off the generator and were getting ready to move it when the tank started to overflow and they had to quickly re connect the pump and pump it down again and then jiggle all the Sloan valve handles to get them to work properly. I wonder if there are similar situations goin on now in the Bellevue/Factoria/Mercer island area. It may take a day for the issue to build up or bubble up.
Looks like a lot of the Seattle area got hit hard! Reminds me of December 2006!! That one was a doozy with people out of power for 1-2 weeks in some cases!!
We were one of the luckiest neighborhoods in the Puget Sound area in that storm, north Bothell...all power stayed on except for a few blips in the overnight hours. Power was underground. I remember having to watch grainy and ghosty analog TV for news coverage because the cable was out for several hours and probably longer.
We were one of the luckiest neighborhoods in the Puget Sound area in that storm, north Bothell...all power stayed on except for a few blips in the overnight hours. Power was underground. I remember having to watch grainy and ghosty analog TV for news coverage because the cable was out for several hours and probably longer.
If there is a back way to drive up to Tiger Mt. I'd love to know about it. I only know of the road that starts at the trailhead off of 18 behind the locked gate. Highway 18 opened around 11 am on Wednesday and I was part of the chain saw party working our way up the 4000 road, taking a left at the "Y" and heading to the West Tiger area. They continued on to the "Boeing" tower and we split off toward the WTM-1 site. Between us we cut 22 trees that were over the road.
Wow, this looks to have been kind of a weird storm. I-5 was closed at the Oregon California border yesterday, and I'm hearing Seattle got hit hard, but it seems that Portland escaped the worst of it. I think there were a few outages down here, but you guys definitely had it so much worse.
I remember 2006 too, we also had power only blink but cable went out for several hours, though I think that happened mostly overnight.
I remember 2006 too, we also had power only blink but cable went out for several hours, though I think that happened mostly overnight.
If you go through the yellow gate in the gravel parking lot and go straight at the first left you will end up on what I think is the "7000" road which mostly runs under the power lines. It eventually hooks up with the road coming out of (or going to) the East Tiger site and then goes to the "Y" where it's the road to the right when you go left to go to WTM 1 and 2.
For fun I drove part of that road, wanting to take a look at the East site, this summer but failed to take the road up to the East site and continued on. It's narrow, overgrown and not pleasant to drive on. Combined with all the dirty looks my big white F150 received from the hikers and bikers I turned around at a Y where one side led to a dead end and worked my way back to the 4000 road. Won't go that way again unless there is no other option.
And yes, a fuel truck for WTM 1 would be great. I suspect that we will be on generator for many more days.
Val
Correction- my posts 9 and 12 should be referring to WTM-2, the site with the similar towers, one with a candelabra and one with the two master FM antennas. Wish I could go back and edit but I can't. We split off for the WTM-2 site and a fuel truck for WTM-2 (and probably WTM-1 also) would be great.
Val
Val
Was out of power for over two days in my part of SKC. Noticed that KRIZ and KYIZ were off the air for at least two days, obviously for lack of power. They've been back on for a day or two, though, so obviously that got resolved. 600K people in the Seattle metro were without power after the cyclone hit. I talked with a couple Potelco guys who were keeping an eye on a downed power pole and they said that in the South Sound there wasn't as much wind and less outages. One of the guys was from Puyallup, he said they didn't have any outages in his area.
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